Geometry, Women in Anime, Aquarion EVOL

In order to crank up the hole puns and symbolism to over 9000, Aquarion Evol episode 9 is… well, over the top to say the least. With the facts and concepts presented in that episode you can play some neat thought experiments/assocation games.

So, random rambling incoming.

Phallic symbolism: I think it’s important to remember the genre trope of having a robot made up of combining parts. Voltron, etc., tend to establish this kind of system of symbols. I think Aquarion likewise play with these ideas in the usual postmodern way that the late-night anime of 10’s have been doing. There is the famous Mugen Punch from the first season, but ever since the OTL we know EVOL is out to do something with these attacks that slightly deviates from the original. Well, maybe not so much, if you consider how the Mugen Punch was used in Aquarion S1’s finale.

So what does that say when Mix will fill all your holes? It’s like instead of being cut by Blazing Sword, it gets stuck up your nose and butt and ear? And gave you really bad acne all over? More importantly, is this any kind of thing that could be interpreted as a sex-distinct literary treatment?

Feminism: I guess one thing that underlines Aquarion is that there’s always a sense that men and women are different, but they have to do the same things. It’s like humans and Zentradis are different, but they end up living together. But who is like the Zentradi? If we consider that public education in Japan is closer to a canning factory than a breeding ground of the diverse, new or exciting, it almost seems like Aquarion is a festival that cheers for the difference between men and women in the context that once they leave the school they’re going to get sucked up, helplessly by alien abductors [using lingo from another show: sent to the child boiler?]. And there’s no telling apart between men and women in some figurative sense after that. At least while in school they can entertain fighting these manifestation of real worlds using metaphoric countermeasures.

Rape is definitely a plot device: How about the mind-controlled (I’m guessing this is what it is meant by those colorful eye highlights) solders looking for some nubile women to, uh, abduct? I mean, right, the SF mumbo-jumbo aside, they’re just looking for some women to bear their children, and you get what I’m getting at.

Andy wants to save his first gattai with Mix. Okay, I think he isn’t really isn’t in a position to be picky, but I think he said what he said just to be cool (from the POV of the writer; Andy may very much want his first to be with Mix) and impress the lady. But if we understand what Aquarion’s gattai is, isn’t this back to re: Rape? Well, maybe not rape, since it doesn’t work unless people “consent” by “synchronizing” (see how rape can totally be reworked into a plot device here lol).

My sex harassment can’t be this cute: Compare that with, say, Andy being consistently lecherous. Or is that just a biological thing? Or more importantly, a harmless thing? How does that compared trash talk by some douche fighting game guy?

As an aside, this is kind of not what I want to see how Andy is written. Andy is kind of the guy who moves forward despite setbacks. But it’s the trick that he does so by digging, figuratively and literally. Well, it’s kind of weird that he got the low-down about Mix by eavesdropping, you’d think he would just ask another girl like Mikono. Or maybe they could’ve written a scene where Amata tells Andy what Mikono said. Anyway.

And I think I understand why Andy is called Andy W. Hole. Because all his holes are the same size. Also see: canning factory.

EVOL has, from the start, written it so that Mix does the usual tsundere act. I also think it is no coincidence she looks just like Kirino. It was in a fairly stereotypical way that, like OreImo, you were kind of expecting it but the show rides that expectation all the way to the bank. And Mix’s got bank.

So here’s the real interpretative thing you could do: when Andy was convincing Mix about the hole in her heart, what does it mean in a “fill” context? Is Mix the one filling it? Is Andy trying to oblige? He “digs” into Mix’s personal construct, and I think the symbolically consistent interpretation is that Andy is still the phallic aggressor but it is up to Mix to change her mind. He only showed her the way. It is amusing that in the end Andy doesn’t get any farther and it is Mix that actually takes the dominant position, but with Amata/Mikono. I think this is as close to a progressive/compromise sort of deal as we can get in anime.

Knowing this is Aquarion, I probably should not be expecting any interpretation that is really progressive in regards to sex and gender, but it provides at least the tools to do so.